Cognism

Category: Lead Gen/Data

The B2B data provider built for European compliance.

Cognism is a B2B contact and company data provider with a deliberately European posture. You search by firmographics, technologies, hiring and funding signals and intent data, then reveal verified emails and mobile numbers, with Diamond Data describing phone numbers verified by a human. Credits work on a revealed-contact basis and re-reveals are free unless the person has changed job. There is a Chrome extension for working from LinkedIn, CRM enrichment that can be bought standalone, and integrations into Salesforce, HubSpot, Outreach and Salesloft. The compliance machinery is the actual product differentiator and is unusually concrete: ISO 27001 and also ISO 27701, the privacy management standard, SOC 2 Type II, screening against fifteen do-not-call registries including the UK TPS and CTPS, and notification of data subjects within GDPR timeframes. A first-party MCP server went generally available in September 2026, included on both tiers at no extra cost and drawing on the same credit pool.

Our verdict

The right choice over the US providers if you sell into the UK and Europe, and the reason is not coverage but compliance. Notifying data subjects is what legitimate interest under GDPR actually requires, and Cognism documents doing it, which almost nothing else in this category does. ISO 27701 and screening against the UK TPS and CTPS are real, checkable things rather than a badge on a website. European mobile coverage is also genuinely better than the American alternatives. The MCP server being included on both tiers at no extra cost, sharing the main credit pool, is an unusually generous commitment. Two things to be clear-eyed about. Cognism's own compliance page states that each party is an independent controller, that your use of the data is outside its control, and recommends you take legal advice, so the positioning implies more protection than the contract provides: it cleans phone data against TPS, it cannot make your email outreach PECR-compliant. And there is no published pricing at all, so budget a sales process.

Best for: UK and European B2B sales teams who need accurate mobile numbers for this market and a defensible answer when someone asks where the data came from.

Pros

  • Notifies data subjects within GDPR timeframes, which is what legitimate interest requires
  • ISO 27701 as well as ISO 27001 and SOC 2 Type II, rare in this category
  • Screens against fifteen do-not-call registries including UK TPS and CTPS
  • European mobile coverage is better than the US providers
  • First-party MCP server included on both tiers, sharing the main credit pool
  • Human-verified phone numbers rather than algorithmic guesses

Cons

  • No published pricing at all, so budget for a sales process
  • Their own terms make you an independent controller and recommend you take legal advice
  • It cleans phone data against TPS, it cannot make your email outreach PECR-compliant
  • US coverage is narrower than ZoomInfo or Apollo
  • An ongoing investor dispute has been reported in the press, worth factoring into a long contract

Pricing: Pricing on application, 5 seats included (Enterprise)

Rating: 4.5/5